If Only Jesus Had Used Starry Night Pro

In Matthew 24:3 the disciples of Jesus asked him, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” Jesus told them there would be signs, but “concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matt. 24:36).

If only Jesus would have had astronomy software. Then he could have answered the disciples more precisely.1

And so here we are again. I get to open Twitter and my blog reader and have it spew dozens of stories about how Mark Blitz and John Hagee know something Jesus didn’t. And multitudes of “the faithful” buy it. I’d say it’s hard to believe Christians can be this gullible, but I’m past that. I’ll believe almost anything now.

And for the person reading this that says, “You’re not being fair, Mike — Matthew 24 has Jesus mentioning all sorts of signs, even the moon darkening.”

No kidding. Really? I’d never read that before. Riddle me this, Batman. Can you explain why (other than your pre-conceived theological system) the signs of Joel and Matt 24 couldn’t have been referring only to events prior to 70 A.D.? (And no, I’m not a preterist). Can you point out the verse that tells me that “the sign of the son of man” (Matt 24:30) mirrors the signs of Jesus’ birth? After all, that’s why this particular set of blood moon tetrads have people fired up (though that isn’t as well-publicized). The reality is that the “sign of the son of man” is never identified specifically. We have no biblical warrant to argue that it is the set of astronomical conditions associated with the Magi and Revelation 12. Zero. Would Jesus have missed that? Why would God have kept that information from him — and us — until Blitz and Hagee installed their astronomy software? What happened to computers being the sign of the beast? (That faded in the prophecy wave of the 70s).

There are quantifiable reasons to just chalk this up to another Bible scam. (One wonders how the Bible code books of years passed missed this). A lot of what Blitz and Hagee claim about the importance of blood moons for Israelite and Jewish history just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The same can be said for the astronomy. Here are two sources for those who actually want to probe the issue.

Here’s a YouTube debunking that shows the basic idea is a fine illustration of non-sequitur thinking (and outright deception):

And, finally, another YouTube debunking by my friend Chris White, the same guy who made the 3-hour debunkumentary (in which I appeared) on the Ancient Aliens nonsense.

I’m aware that Blitz is the one who’s given a precise date for Jesus’ return, not Hagee. Hagee’s just getting a piece of the pie. His sufficiently vague prediction about some world-changing events qualifies him only for writing horoscopes. ↩